Sweetmeat

Rating:
Summary: Nice One
Review: A must read for anyone who has visited or lived in London for a time. Various places seem to trigger metaphysical imagery for Sutherland and his protagonists. There's an ambitious cache of allegory here, but the author and the characters manage it well.

Food is the foil, allowing head chef Bohemond to find his humanity AND his spirit. Wordplay and alliteration bring incredibly vibrant passages to life--with almost all things orbiting food. The Delphi restaurant described in Sweetmeat is located in a metaphysically interesting area on the southbank of the Thames, and I suppose that it some way parallels the awakening of cuisine in Britain, via ethnicity, via et ceteras. There is a lot here to enjoy and to contemplate.

While the plot at times takes some patience, it's the mastery of the language and the strength of imagination that make Sweetmeat a good novel. A character from the author's spoken word "Pink Puppet" figures prominently, with a brief cameo by one from his first book, Jelly Roll...all in all, an intriguing work and definitely worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: A curious book
Review: This is a very different book for someone who prefers murder mysteries, although I did enjoy it. As a foodie I appreciated the references to gourmet food, and was intrigued by the parallel story as told by Faulkner. Other readers may find it more rewarding than I did.